Arts Division

The College of Arts & Sciences celebrates undergraduate and graduate students from across all four divisions, who are recognized for making the most of their time at the UW. 

Students in DRAMA 480 learn how techniques used in game design can be adapted for interactive theater productions. 

Tacoma-based chamber orchestra Northwest Sinfonietta performed a variety of concerto excerpts with UW piano students April 12, conducted by senior artist in residence David Rahbee. The UW School of Music is mentioned.

Every January, the Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency program invites an up-and-coming Black artist to exhibit new work and carry on the legacy of the late Jacob Lawrence. This year, the exhibition showcases Simon Benjamin, a Jamaican multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker based in New York. The School of Art + Art History + Design is mentioned.

Jordan Jones has been appointed as the next Director and Curator of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery, to begin in April 2024. In her role as Director and Curator, Jones will provide curatorial, programming, and administrative leadership and oversight in a newly renovated state-of-the-art exhibition space within the School of Art + Art History + Design at the UW Seattle campus. 

“For me, art has always been, more than anything, a container for conversation … I want [this gallery] to be a space where folks can meet and have a really vital, productive kind of social experience," said Jordan Jones. Getting to know Jacob Lawrence Gallery’s new director and curator. 

The piece called “The Fin Project: From Swords into Plowshares” was created in 1998 by artist John T. Young, professor and chair of the UW School of Art's sculpture program.

The organization that honors Rosa Parks, Elie Wiesel, and Jane Goodall has also celebrated three members of the UW community. Honorees include: neurobiologist Linda B. Buck, ’75; Theodore Roethke, English professor at the UW, 1947-1963; and master glass artist Dale Chihuly, ’65.

If you’re looking for a way to connect your alma mater to Timothée Chalamet, look no further. The star graced screens around the world in the epic films “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two,” which were based on the Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel by former UW student Frank Herbert. Need another tie? Chalamet’s character, Paul Atreides, first appeared on the silver screen in the 1984 version of “Dune.” The actor? Kyle MacLachlan, ’82.

National Poetry Month takes place every year in April. Its purpose is to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry nationwide. This year, Seattle residents will have the privilege and pleasure of discovering, installed throughout various parts of the city, poems by local poets on topics of place and sustainability. Jayme Yen, former artist in residence in design at the UW, is mentioned.

Beyoncé's latest album, "Cowboy Carter," pays homage to country and other acts before her time. She covered Dolly Parton's "Jolene" and The Beatles' "Blackbird" and added her own twists. Chart data shows that the artists she spotlights are seeing a streaming boost. Gabriel Solis, professor of music and Divisional Dean of the Arts at the UW, is quoted.

Elizabeth Xiong (2024), a double major in art history and computer science, shares how she gained different and complementary skills from each major.

Alejandro Rico-Guevara, assistant professor of biology at the UW and curator of ornithology at the UW Burke Museum, remembers when he first realized he was a hummingbird guy — not like an "I fill my hummingbird feeder every week" guy but an “I want to know everything about these birds” guy.

Natural history museums have entered a new stage of discovery and accessibility â one where scientists around the globe and curious folks at home can access valuable museum specimens to study, learn or just be amazed. This new era follows the completion of openVertebrate, or oVert, a five-year collaborative project among 18 institutions to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens and make them freely available online. The team behind this endeavor, which includes scientists at the University of Washington and its Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture, published a summary of the project March 6 in the journal BioScience, offering a glimpse of how the data can be used to ask new questions and spur the development of innovative technology.

The neon sign outside of the Henry Art Gallery reveals different words as they illuminate in a cycle: LOVE. RULES. LOVE. OVER. RULES. This work of art from 2020 is by Hank Willis Thomas, the much-lauded, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based conceptual artist, and is also the title of a new, commanding exhibition at the Henry, featuring more than 90 works spanning 20 years from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation.